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the day before family travel

tomorrow my family and i head to the great unknown (for us) of montana. it’s actually a bit odd that we’re spending 8 days in montana, since it’s one of the three states in the union i’ve never been to. we own a time share, and often try to trade it for a place elsewhere (in fact, we’ve never stayed a full week at our own place, which is here in san diego). about a month ago, we realized we were about to lose a week we’d “banked” at rci (the exchange company), and thought we might as well take a bit of a holiday during the kids’ spring break. so i called rci and tried to find a place in driving distance: cali, nevada, arizona, new mexico. nothing. they found us a place in colorado, and it wasn’t a nice resort (our place is nice, and i bugs me to trade down).

i said to the nice rci lady, “look, i’m not sure what to tell you. you need me to specify a part of the country to search. we don’t really care where we go, as long as we can get a ‘gold crown resort’ (the top level), a good-sized two-bedroom condo, and in one of these two weeks.” she said, “that’s no problem, sir [click, click, click, tap, tap, tap] — how’s montana?”

so montana it is. and, needless to say, we’re not driving. i had to use a major wad of air miles to get free tix on united for all of us, flying into (surely) beautiful missoula, montana. the resort is just outside the entrance to glacier national park. we have a snowmobile tour booked for saturday afternoon.

but that starts tomorrow (we fly in the afternoon tomorrow). which means today is… THE DAY BEFORE FAMILY TRAVEL. i’m just glad i get to go to work today, because THE DAY BEFORE FAMILY TRAVEL is never a fun day in the oestreicher house. packing, lists, animal care instructions for the house-sitter, last-minute shopping runs, finishing projects that are unrelated to travel but can’t be left half-finished. we’ll likely be up insanely late tonight. all because it’s THE DAY BEFORE FAMILY TRAVEL.

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8 thoughts on “the day before family travel”

if you will be in relatively close proximity, you would be shorting yourself on a huge level to not visit Yellowstone. also, an hour south of there is Jackson Hole and Teton National Park. if you can, get there! thank me later.

At one point, I was planning on going to Montana and raising sheep to start an organic wool company. Then I wanted to start a coffeehouse in Missoula. (Missoula is probably the best part of the state, culturally, which I know isn’t saying much). In the end, I decided to skip starting a business in Montana altogether. But it surely is beautiful. There is lots of room to breathe.

I lived in Bozeman for 5 years. It is snowing there today from what I hear from people. My aunt lives in Missoula. Home of the book “A River Runs Through It” (First Presbyterian Church is where the father pastored).

You will have a beautiful drive up past Flathead lake, through Kalispell and a few Indian reservations. You wont be too far from Big Mountain if you wanna do some skiing.

Renee is right, Missoula is kinda the artsy liberal part of the state.

Interestingly, or not so interestingly for you, you will drive past the home of Eugene Peterson along the way and your only clue will be you pass a Lutheran church camp that is about a mile away. The town is called Rollins and has a convienience store/post office/restaurant as about the only thing in the “town”.

Glacier Park is gorgeous, and has relatively less traffic that the Tetons and Yellowstone.

man, i just reread what I wrote……it sounded so mean…i wasn’t trying to sound mean, more what I meant to say was avoiding the rough days before travel sounds like a good idea…..oops…i’m not mean I swear!

I’m Mark Oestreicher

I'm a partner in The Youth Cartel, providing services and resources for individual youth workers and organizations. I’ve been married to Jeannie for 30 years, and have two great kids: Riley (22) and Max (18).
Here's The Youth Cartel's website.
twitter: @markosbeard
instagram: @whyismarko